In flash storage systems, repeatedly writing to flash memory eventually causes a breakdown in the storage media and a much-written-to flash storage system will not be able to hold a charge (i.e., accurately store a data value) for a long period of time. This is undesirable because a user or application will often store information and expect that information be available years later when it is read back. One technique used in some flash storage systems to mitigate this is to track the number of times each location in memory is written to; the storage location with the least number of writes is selected the next time there is something to be written. It would be desirable if new techniques could be developed that further improve the lifetime of a flash storage system.